AFTER THE CHANGE

By Ryan L

Distance-learning was and still is a struggle for a lot of students, but something that isn’t mentioned too often is the aftermath of distance-learning. What effect does that have on people that aren’t accustomed to their new, unusual settings?

For Alexa Ayala, a junior at Yerba Buena High School, coming back to in-person classes in her sophomore year was intimidating, and it was a struggle to make friends. “...[it] was really hard meeting new people because I didn’t really have many friends and I didn’t know anybody,” Ayala said.

With the huge change that COVID incited in some people along with a year of significantly reduced contact with others, coming back was challenging. Ayala felt that even with people she knew beforehand, they seemed different and because of that, she didn’t really talk with them.

Unless you were actively talking to someone frequently over the pandemic, maintaining that same level of trust and friendship was really hard. “People that I knew before were different so I didn’t really talk to them,” she said.

While everyone has different ways of coping and dealing with things, one of Ayala’s main escapes was writing. She loved and enjoyed writing from a very young age. One thing that Alexa said that she had trouble with was “expressing herself to people verbally.”

So, through writing, Ayala was able to express her emotions and thoughts more clearly than she could normally. She said that “... writing's always helped me, it's always been a part of my life.” Ayala mentioned that she “wrote in a journal” and that writing about herself in her journal was an outlet for her.

Ayala’s two friends she made really helped her with her problems and life. “They’ve made me a little more social…” she said. With the help of her friends, she was able to be more social and made meaningful connections with others that she “could always trust.” Ayala said that her friends “put her on the spot” sometimes when interacting with others so that really helped her come out of her shell.

Another important figure in Ayala’s life was her cousin. She mentioned that “... she would give [her] advice on how to calm down and put [her] mindset in somewhere where [she’s] not.” For example, one good piece of advice that her cousin told her is that “if you stop talking to a person, there’s a reason why so don’t start talking to them again.”

Life after distance-learning was difficult, but Ayala was able to persist through the various struggles and separation she felt with the help of her friends, cousins, and writing.